Agri-Plas, Inc. employees load triple-rinsed empty pesticide containers for recycling at the Washington County Pesticide Roundup Dec.1 at Crop Production Services in Cornelius.Courtesy of Nicole Ahr

Farmers from Washington and Clackamas Counties dropped off a collective 21,000 pounds of pesticide waste early this month during a free disposal event at Crop Production Services in Cornelius.

Hosted by the Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District, the Dec. 1 event was the first agricultural pesticide roundup in Washington County. Forty participants disposed of unused, old, restricted or damaged pesticides. They also left 1,300 pounds of triple-rinsed, empty pesticide containers for recycling by Agri-Plas, Inc. in Brooks.

Project coordinator Nicole Ahr said the free event was anonymous because it made farmers feel more secure about dropping off pesticides, "particularly some of which are no longer legal to use." Clean Harbors in Clackamas took them for chemical processing, she said, after which they will be incinerated.

"Some farmers have had chemicals sitting in their sheds for decades that they had no way of disposing properly," she said. "This was the perfect event for that."

The farmers were all grateful for the opportunity, Ahr said, because it can be very expensive to dispose of pesticides in large quantities.

It's tricky, she said, because while farmers probably don't want the Department of Environmental Quality to know they have these chemicals, it's also not necessarily their fault if the pesticides were inherited.